The big subject in these poems is not only the suicide but, more importantly, how any interpretation of suicide is ambiguous, how it draws itself instinctively to metaphor and a sort of truncated dialectic where, instead of arguing with oneself, the poet is arguing with the living image left on the trail of someone’s being gone.

Certain poets have the ability to create poems of Euclidean clarity. Rasmussen is one such poet. His images make me feel as though I’ve lived for years in the span of a moment. His lapidary poems seem more real than the chair I am sitting on or the room that holds me aloft in space as I type this.

With this book, [Matt] brilliantly conveys how the echo of death crowds us toward our most important questions, one after another, and Rasmussen bravely faces each of them without succumbing to answer. Instead, the poems quake with light.